Q. What has this artist done to update a classical form of painting?

A. This is the work of Chinese artist Huang Yan (Four Seasons) who is making an unbelievably innovative and original statement in the tradition of classical landscape painting. By using his own body as the canvas he is contemporizing a traditional form of painting, and making an historical, philosophical, and personal statement about the roots of identity (and, not coincidentally, about Buddhist transience and permanence).  It amounts to a brilliant extension of the history of Chinese landscape painting.